


Hooded

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [425]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, spiderman!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-10-07 11:52:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 20,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10359801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: anon requested: do one with spiderman Alan, with John being the only one who knows?





	1. Chapter 1

John had slapped his hand over his eyes a few minutes ago, and showed no sign of moving any time soon.  “So let me get this straight,” he said as Alan’s stuttering excuses and explanations finally petered out.  “You got bit by a radioactive spider, and rather than _telling_ anyone or getting help, you decide to go out and fight crime.”

Alan winced.  “When you put it like that…” he admitted grudgingly.

Finally, the hand dropped.  John looked ten thousand percent _done_.  “Fine, let’s just accept that absolute _crazy_  as fact.  That still doesn’t explain what you are wearing.”

Alan looked down at his hodgepodge of hoodies and pants, all bought with cash, all untraceable back to him or his family.  “Secret identity?”

John sighed, his shoulders rolling back as his spine stiffened.  “Alan,” he said not unkindly.  “We are heirs to an industrial fortune.  We have access to R&D labs and fabrication workshops and a global supply chain, and a _hoodie_  is the best you can come up with.  Get changed,” he ordered, sitting down at Alan’s desk.  “We’re burning that, and making you a proper outfit.”

Alan blinked.  “You’re going to help me?”

John rolled his eyes as he fired up the screen.  “Someone obviously has to.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> What about a continuation of that one spiderman!alan story?

For all his grumbling, John seemed pretty invested in the costume.  “How’s range of movement?” he asked as Alan tried on what felt like the zillionth version of the suit.

This one was a deep red with matte black, a stronger spider and web motif than the previous variations.  Alan flexed and clenched his fist a few times before doing a standing backflip up to cling to the ceiling.

John didn’t even blink.  “No pulling?”

“Better than naked,” Alan quipped, his voice muffled from under the full-faced mask.  He tried an experimental crawl along to the wall and back down onto the floor.

John was smiling tightly.  “I’ve added a few features.”  He made a flicking gesture with his wrist.  Alan’s arm lit up in a display as Alan mimicked the motion. “Cool.”

“Cool?”  John sighed.  “Why am I helping an actual child do this?”

“Because you love me and want me to be happy?”  Another flick, and the virtual display vanished.

“Because I want you to be  _safe_ ,” John corrected firmly, heading over to the trolley of tools tucked in by his desk.  Alan’s eyes widened behind the mask as John produced a drill and a handgun.  “Which is why I’ve tried to make the suit bullet proof and stab proof.  Shall we test it?”

Alan was up, out the window and halfway down the tower in a flash.  “Don’t forget your curfew,” John hollered after him.

Grinning, Alan threw a web and swung out into Manhattan.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fr0st6yte asked:  
> Continuation of your brilliant Spider-Man AU with Alan getting hurt?

“I never want you to use this,” John had said then, the smell of cordite still hanging in the air as he walked Alan through the emergency menu on his new wrist controller, the various large, easy to mash circles that would summon help.

Alan still had to concentrate now to lift a hand to turn the orange glowing ring in the centre of the wrist holo bright red.

Then all there was left to do was to lie on the top of the building and stare up at the stars, as blood continued to pulse weakly  up from beneath the press of his gloved fingers.

The last thing Alan remembered was the sound of a strange engine humming and pulsing, and something dark blotting out the stars.

 * * *

Alan wakes with a groan and a wince.  He was on his back, hood off and suit open wide enough to show his stomach was now covered in pristine surgical bandages.  He poked at it with a gloved hand, leaving a dirty smear on the white surface gauze.

“Twenty-one stitches,” a voice said.  Alan winced as he tried to turn to look towards the voice, but a moment later John stepped into view as he came up to Alan’s side and clinically inspected the bandages.  “And given I am not a medical doctor, I’m pretty sure that’s going to leave an  _epic_ scar.”

“You saved me?”  Alan glanced around the unfamiliar space.  A warehouse, he guessed, filled with the now-familiar tools of John’s art; laptops and crates of electronics and racks of precision tools.  He smiled weakly up at John; there was something else, but he still felt too muzzy to put his finger on it.  “What happened to, and I quote, dumping me on the doorstep of Mercy Hospital and making me someone else’s problem if I got hurt?”

John’s fingers were gentle but firm as they probed the edge of the bandage, searching for leaks.  “Well, you’d just insist on following me home anyway, so I figured I’d better off just come get you.”  He leaned back, one hand lightly on Alan’s wrist, the other resting on his hip as he cocked his head.  His eyes flashed as they searched Alan’s face.  “Would now be the time to say I told you so?”

“The bad guys do seem to be bringing more friends to the party,” Alan admitted sheepishly, feeling his nose wrinkle.  “I would have had them if not for the actual ninja. Ninja, John, I swear.”

John sighed again, turning away from Alan, but not so fast that Alan didn’t catch the edge of his small smile.  “Ninjas, huh.  Add that to the list of things we need to build your suits for.”

Alan planted his hands and slowly eased himself into sitting, each movement tugging at the stitches in his belly.  “Not that I’m complaining,” he said into the expanding silence.  Whatever anesthesia John had given him was wearing off fast now, probably another shiny feature of his new spider metabolism.  “But that was a real short ‘I told you so.’”  It made him wince, but he managed to drop off the table onto his feet with only a little grunt. “I was kinda expecting a ‘you are to never spider anywhere ever again’ lecture, to be honest.”

“Spider isn’t a verb,” John evaded.  Alan narrowed his eyes as he took in the formfitting jumpsuit John was wearing, so dark a blue it was almost black in the low light.  John was bent over a work table, his hands flashing as he assembled something.  “And would it work if I did try that?” John added without turning around.

“Probably not,” Alan admitted, limping over to stand by the work bench.  He frowned at the small device John was finishing.  It reminded him of nothing so much as a beetle, made our of circuit boards and wire.  “What’s that?”

“If we’re facing ninjas,” John said, lifting the beetle in both hands. A twitch of his thumbs, and the beetle whirred into life and flew up towards an open skylight, high above them.  “I for one would like to know where they are before they stab us. Again, in your case.”

“Us?” Alan asked.  By the bright light of the workbench, Alan could now make out the vaguely circuit-like patterns on John’s suit, so similar in texture to the webbing pattern on his own.  “John?” he asked slowly, as an idea slowly began to dawn. “What did you  _do_?”

“Not get bit by a radioactive spider, for starters,” John shrugged.  It was the second time he’d evaded in this conversation, and Alan felt his eyes narrow.  “Alan, if you tried to swing on a web right now, you’d spill your guts, quite literally, over most of Lower Manhattan.”

Alan ignored the comment like he was ignoring the pulsing pain below his ribs.  “John,” he repeated, stabbing a finger into John’s chest.  “What is this?”

“Plan M,” John shrugged.  “Which I really hoped I’d never need, and not just because Plan M only happens if you get hurt”  John walked fast as he moved across what Alan now had to admit was a lot more than a makeshift workshop.  John stepped onto a raised platform, and a ring of monitors obediently lit up.  One showed the workshop at a funny angle, upside down, and Alan span on the spot for a long moment before he worked out it was a camera feed from his own suit goggles, hanging on his hood at the back of his neck.  “You sneaky bastard,” Alan said admiringly as he stepped up next to John.

“I had to keep an eye on you somehow,” he murmured, his attention mostly on a screen showing a view of the city from above. The little beetle drone was moving fast as it zig-zagged its way back to the site of Alan’s ignoble defeat. 

“John, even if you find them, you’re right.”  Alan pressed a hand over his bandage, wincing at the raw feeling of the stitches under the gauze.  “I heal fast now, but even this is going to take time.”  He hated to say it, but it was the simple truth.  Superheroing, Alan was learning, involved a lot of critical self-reflection.  That wasn’t in the comic books.

“I know,” John agreed softly, holding his hand out to his side like they did when they were kids, hanging out the car window on trips to visit Grandma, making their palms hover in the oncoming wind.  On screen, the view banked and turned in response.  “Which is why I have Plan M.”

Alan gritted his teeth; John could be as much a pain in his side as the stitches.  “So, are you going to share with the class?  What is Plan M?”

The drone hovered in the air, the screen switching to infra-red with a flick of John’s fingers.  The apartment wall turned into a heat map, clearly showing four figures, two sitting, two standing.  John nodded, turning so fast that Alan was left standing on the ring as the screens went blank once more.  “John!”

John spun again, so fast Alan almost ran into him.  “Plan M is you stay here, and heal.”  John reached back over his shoulder.  The hood that John pulled down over his face was matte black, featureless and expressionless except for the slightest shine of the lenses over John’s eyes.  “While I deal with the cause of the problem.” Another sharp spin, and John continued across the warehouse

Even after the bite, John could always outstride Alan.  “John!” Alan yelled, wincing as his wound stabbed him again.  

John, barely visible now amid the shadows, paused with one foot into a pod that Alan hadn’t noticed beyond the ring of benches and tools.  “They hurt you.”  It wasn’t just the mask that made John’s voice so flat.  “I can’t…” 

Alan leaned on the nearest bench for a moment, finding his strength.  “John, whatever it is, please…”

“Rest,” John cut him off.  “I’ll be back soon.”

Alan watched, leaning heavily against the table as that strange engine noise filled the room, a low, pulsing hum that was felt as much as heard.  His hair ruffled as the pod hovered above him for a moment longer, until the roof had retracted far enough for it to shoot into the sky.

Alan was breathing hard, and not just from the pain in his belly.  He gripped the table hard enough that the edges creaked and bent, his eyes locked on the stars above, watching and waiting for John to come back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked  
> Consider this next batch for John and Alan, if any of them take your fancy because you gave me the emotions: 4. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“You can’t keep doing this.” 

Alan isn’t sure what  _this_  is, but he could hazard some guesses, none of them good.  He’d taken to scouring the local news, the police reports, for any clue, any detail to piece together the bigger picture.

John’s sat with his back to Alan, but in the mirror, Alan can see the black eye and split lip John is carefully dabbing at with a tissue.  As Alan rested his hands on John’s shoulders, he felt the tiniest flinch that hinted at more bruises under the long-sleeved shirt.  “Seriously, John.  I have superpowers, and I take more care than you do.”  He’d been tucked up in his bedroom, doing his algebra homework, taking a night off from crime fighting like all good heroes should.  Especially heroes with a maths test on Friday.

Where John had been last night was anyone’s guess.  But from the rapidly darkening bruises, Alan was prepared to bet it was nowhere friendly.

Alan sighed at John’s continued silence, twisting to perch on the edge of the table.  He hitched his shirt up and drummed his fingers over the red scar.  “I am healed, or good as.  No more Plan M.  No more sneaking around.”  He let his shirt drop.  “That’s my job.”

John rested his hand on Alan’s forearm, not looking his younger brother in the eye.  “I know,” he admitted, voice soft.  “But my bugs, they caught something, near the warehouse.  A woman.  Hell, barely a girl really.”  Alan felt John’s fingers flex, like even now they wanted to ball into fists.  “She was screaming.”

Alan’s sigh was loud in the quiet of John’s room.  “And she was shouting for help, and no help came?” he guessed.  “Yeah.  Know those feels, bro.”

That got a tiny smile, knocked away almost immediately by the sting of his cracked lip.  But John finally looked up.  “You too, huh?”

Alan patted the hand still resting, now still and slack, on his forearm.  “Fair warning, it’s habit forming.  Helping people, I mean.  I personally would give a pass to the cuts and bruises.”

The ice pack was mostly slush now, but John picked it up anyway, slung it over his shoulder.  “Yeah, well, in my defense, they were ninjas.”

Alan burst out laughing.  “Of course,” he managed, eyes twinkling. “Those ninjas, man, they’ll sneak up on ya. Come on,” he added, helping John stand.  “We need to get you out of here before anyone sees that shiner. And,” he added as John shifted on his feet.  “You need actual body armour if you’re going to be tackling ninjas again.” He rocked up on his toes as he leaned in like it’s a big secret.  “I hear we have these fabrication workshops that can make  _anything_.”

John’s fingers were long, and cool from the ice pack.  But they’re strong and steady as they wrapped around Alan’s shoulder and briefly squeezed.

Out in the hall, Virgil’s laugh was suddenly, dangerously close.  “Trust me?” Alan asked, lifting an eyebrow.  “And before I suggest this, may I remind you.  Proportional strength of a spider.”

Alan’s proud at the way John doesn’t even gasp, his grip steady and his weight balanced on Alan’s back as they go out the window and swing across the city.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked:  
> 15\. “Are you still awake…?”

“Are you still awake…?” 

Alan’s voice still sounded a little hoarse even to his own ears; the smoke bomb had caught him completely off guard.  He’d been put on the camp bed to rest, and he’d drifted off watching John fiddle with his hood, fitting a filter.

He’s not sure what woke him, noise or movement or some strange twinge in his spidey sense. But it’s fully dark in the warehouse now except for the neon glow of John’s monitors. In front of them, John is just a dark silhouette, slumped with his head resting on his folded arms.  But at Alan’s raspy voice, John stirred, sitting in a way that spoke of stiff necks and sore backs.  “How’re you feeling?” John asked, only slightly turning his head.

“Neigh,” Alan drawled softly even as he sat up.  The rough blanket that had been draped over his shoulders fell to pool around his lap.  “But I’ll live.”

“This time.”

Alan’s getting used to these flashes of dark mood John is showing more and more.  He’s not sure what it says about him, or them, or this secret they share, that it’s something he  _can_  get used to.

Alan stood slowly, dragging the blanket up like a cape.  It’s half a dozen steps across the frigid warehouse floor, and Alan staggered a little, almost falling forward onto John’s back to drape himself like a second blanket.  “Where does everyone think we are?”  It’s easier to whisper, and the echoing silence of the warehouse after midnight seemed to suppress any louder noises.

John’s snort is felt more than heard.  His hand reached out almost absently, rubbing the material of the dark blue hood for a moment before dropping it again.  “Astronomy field trip.  We’re somewhere upstate, looking at stars.”

Alan nudged with his chin against the side of John’s head, just an obnoxious little brother pestering his favourite big sibling.  No powers, no threats, just two boys alone together in the dark.  “Open the roof,” he suggested.  “Then we’re mostly not liars.”

“Are too,” John said, almost too quiet for normal ears to hear.  “Besides, we’re in the middle of the city,” he added in an almost-normal whisper.  “Light pollution,” he sighed.

“Don’t care,” Alan rasped back.  “Fine,” he added when all that got him was another sigh.  “But if you need me, I’ll be star watching on the roof.”

The ladders up were rusted and rickety.  Alan bypassed them by simply thwipping a line up to a rafter and springing himself up towards where he knows there’s an access hatch.

He’s well tucked in under his blanket, his back to one of the power blocks that mar the roofline, by the time the hatch screeched open and John slipped out. He’s got another armful of blankets, and a backpack dangling from his other shoulder.

Alan shuffled over slightly, more an invitation to sit than anything.  John takes his time, laying out a blanket to sit on and another across his laps.  The backpack contained the high-power binoculars from the pod, and a few capri sun packets. 

Alan accepted one with a grin.  “Holding out on me.”

“A man’s snacks are sacred,” John replied, rocking to nudge his shoulder against Alan.  He tipped back to stare up at the sky, glowing slightly as the lights of the city reflected off the thin cloud cover.  “We’re not going to see anything,” he grumbled.

Alan shuffled, accidentally ending up leaning more on John than on the metalwork behind them.  “Yeah we are.” The juice is cool and soothing on his raw throat. “The bright lights of the city.  I mean, look at that view.”

John’s arm was warm, and stronger than Alan can ever remember it being, as he slung it around Alan’s shoulders.  “Fine, fine.  Shut up and drink your juice.”

Alan sipped smugly as John adjusted his binoculars in a vague hope of seeing something more than the faintest sense of the constellations above.  Next to him, Alan’s breathing steadied and slowed.  “Allie? You still awake?”

There was no response but the faintest sense of a snore.  John put aside his binoculars, pulled the blankets more tightly over both of them, and settled in to watch the dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked:  
> 28\. “That’s almost exactly the opposite of what I meant.”

The explosion knocked Alan off his feet and into the wall at the back of the alley.  He twisted mid-air, coming to land on his fingers and toes on the brickwork above the fire escape.  “That’s almost exactly the opposite of what I meant!” he yelled into his comm.

John chuckled, the sound low and warm through his earpiece.  “You said distract them.  They’re distracted.  Do your thing, bug-boy.”

Alan gritted his teeth under his mask as he scampered up the brickwork, high enough to push out and backflip onto the roof of the low row of shops on the opposite side.  John’s latest invention had left streaks of soot up the sides of the alley, and a pile of trash in the corner was still on fire.  Of the three robbers, one was sitting on the gravel, banging the side of his head.  Of the other two, one was struggling out of his smouldering jacket, and the other was staggering to the fresher air of the main street.

Alan didn’t even need to swing; a quick flick of his wrist and the webbing blasted the escaping bad guy against a dumpster and glued him in place.  A short hop down to street level brought him face to face with the guy who was now stomping on his jacket.  “Bad guys say what?” he chirped merrily.

“What..?” Alan snorted at his own pun as he caught a wrist and, with a quick  _thwip_ , webbed it to the nearest wall.

Alan glanced down at the guy still kneeling, shaking his head in a daze, and then up at the flashing lights that were turning into the alley way.  “Later, gaters,” Alan said, already bounding up off some trash cans and up onto the fire escape with the help of a quick web line.

John was waiting for him a block away, leaning almost nonchalantly against an air conditioner block, staring up at some birds circling in the distance.  “Okay, honesty time,” Alan said as he skidded to a halt on the rooftop beside John.  “Who gave you high explosives?”

Even from under a mask, John’s side-eye was withering.  “Those weren’t high explosive.  Low to mid at best. Barely more than a firecracker.”

“Tell that to the scorch marks you left back  there,” Alan said, thumping John’s arm gently.  The armor absorbed the blow with a soft  _thud._ “Dude, new rule.  Warn me when you’re about to start setting things on  _fire_.”

John’s chuckle was warm and wicked in the cool night air.  “Fine.  I’ll find another way to distract them. Just because you asked  _so_ nicely.”

Alan was getting used to reading the tiniest movements of the mask that betrayed John’s real expression.  “You’re not getting rid of the explosives, are you?”

John just laughed and slung an easy arm over Alan’s shoulder.  “You have your toys,” he said, gripping Alan’s elbow to wave his wrist, and the web shooter on it, through the air.  “Let me have mine.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked:  
> 82\. “Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”

“Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.” 

John gave Alan the most ancient look in his repertoire.  In the months since John had burned the old hoodie costume and joined the team, Alan had become fluent in John’s expressions.

This one was mostly “ya think” with strong undertones of a slow clap and the slightest soupçon of a suppressed laugh.  

Alan supposed that was fair.  In his defense, he was still polishing his more advanced web-flinging moves.  It wasn’t his fault that the main door they used for ground level departures was  _right there_.  “What’s the dissolve time on that?” John sighed.  “Two hours?”

“Closer to three.  When’s Virgil’s thing start?”

John leaned back and glanced at the clock in the bottom corner of one of his monitors.  “We need to be back in the next ninety minutes if we’re going to be on time.  And with the building crew still on site next door, I would not recommend going out via the roof.”

Alan frowned; being late was not an option.  He and John had been hauled up once already this month for a dressing down about their persistent tardiness.  It hadn’t helped that as soon as their dad said the word, Alan had the Doctor Who theme in his head. John had started humming the melody as soon as they were in the elevator.  Alan was still glad it was John who was coming along with him for this ride.

“Come on John, your backup plans have backup plans.  You’ve got another door out of here, I bet.”

John sighed and thumbed the discreet pad that locked his systems.  “Yeah.” He grabbed Alan’s backpack and threw it at him. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Twenty minutes later, and Alan was all but crawling up the back of John’s shirt.  John was grinning, and Alan was rethinking his entire favourite brother schema.  “You are our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman,” John said over his shoulder as Alan flinched again. “It’s your thing.  You cannot be an arachnophobe.”

Alan pressed even closer between John’s shoulderblades as something brushed his hair.  The dank, dripping service tunnel looked like it hadn’t seen a human in a century.  Alan’s sneakers were sodden with unspeakable mud, and even with his night vision, John’s torch barely cut through the gloom.  “I like spiders when I know where they are.  Also, as I got bit by one, I think it’s no longer an  _irrational_  fear.”

Alan felt John’s little nod as he conceded the point.  “At least we’re making progress.”

“Where does this go?”

John swept his torch over a cabling junction.  “Subway.  Hope you’ve got your pass.”

The early rush hour peak buffeted them as they forced an unremarkable service door open and stumbled out onto the platform. Apart from one or two glances, no-one gave them any notice, and not for the first time since taking on a secret identity did Alan give thanks for that New York ability to see nothing.

John kept his hand on Alan’s collar as they jumped off at their station. The big clock in the lobby was ticking the hour as John punched the code and pushed Alan onto the private elevator that would carry them to the family levels.

“John?”

“Yeah, Alan?”

“We stink of mud.”

John exhaled, knocking a lank lock of hair off his forehead.  “Run for the showers and hope no-one sees us?”

The elevator doors opened to the shiny clean foyer and their father, already in his suit, waiting for them.

Alan froze.  “Evening,” John said pleasantly.  “Give us five minutes to get cleaned up and we’ll be right with you.”

Their father could stretch any silence to its most uncomfortable length.  “Virgil made us wait for you.”

Alan winced.  Their father had a knack too for combining the fewest words with the maximum impact.  Alan started crabbing sideways past their father, dragging John with him.  “Well, we won’t keep him waiting much longer.”

Only once they were up the stairs and out of earshot did Alan drag John down to his level.  “He’s suspicious.”

John turned the energy of the move around to shove Alan down the hall even faster.  “Let’s just get through tonight.  We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

As Alan dove into the barely warm shower, he desperately hoped that nothing bad would happen for the rest of the evening.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked:  
> 84\. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” The traffic on the street seems a long way down from up here.

Next to him, Alan was perched almost nonchalantly on the low wall that separated the roof top from a very long drop.  “Not afraid of heights are you?” Alan all but purred.

In hindsight, the rubber spider in Alan’s bed last week was probably a bad call.

“It’s not the height, it’s the sudden stop at the other end that concerns me,” John answered, stepping back slightly from the edge. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the now familiar push and pull of his armour ripple with the movement.  He’d agreed to the heavier plates in return for being allowed to fit out the next gen of Alan’s suit with similar defenses.  The new suit was light years from the old hoodie costume, and Alan looks broader across the shoulders now, crouched as he was with his fingertips resting on the bricks between his feet. John knew only some of that breadth was the new armour.  “But you’ll catch me if I fall right?” he added, turning back to looking at the other rooftop, half a block away.

He meant it as a joke, a bit of easy banter, but Alan nodded seriously.  “Of course.  But you’re not going to fall.  And you said it yourself, the pod is still too big and too loud and too obvious for getting between the buildings like I do.”  He jumped down onto the rooftop proper and slapped John’s arm.  “Come on, you’re a bona fide superhero now.” He took half a step back.  “Not a chicken, right?  Maybe that can be your code name.  Captain Cluck.”

Brotherly code only left him with one option now.  John may not have the proportional strength of a spider, as Alan liked to constantly remind him, but John had a brain and the best tools he could acquire through some creative hacking.  He’d run the simulations himself and all the numbers checked out.

Theoretically, he could do this.

In practice, that pavement really did look very hard and unyielding from up here.  But Alan was watching with keen interest, and if John wanted to continue to have any chance of keeping up with him when he was in full-on spider mode, he had to make this work.

John’s goggles lit up with the in-build HUD he’d designed, acquiring a target and offering a probability of a strong anchor.  John glanced behind, checking the blockhouse at the top of the stairs was still where he had left it before he clenched his fist around his thumb and squeezed. The device strapped to his forearm fired, the percussion jolt strong even with all the reinforcing John had been doing, and he flinched automatically as the reverse of the line flew back past his shoulder to anchor the home end solid.

John didn’t have Alan’s strength, so he’d have to use architecture and basic physics instead.  The HUD informed him the line was tensioned and ready. John took a deep breath and launched himself off the edge.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> preludeinz asked:  
> 94\. “What time is it?”

“What time is it?” 

The multiple Alan’s before him resolved into a single face, his mask pushed up to his temples.  John coughed, and winced against the sudden stabbing pain everywhere.

Alan’s hands were gritty where they were pushing against his shoulders, holding him flat on the table.  “Time you were lying still.”  John frowned at the tracks Alan’s tears had left in the soot on his cheeks; why had Alan been crying?  “John, please, just lie still,” Alan begged.

John’s thoughts were fuzzy, but one idea was like a beacon.  “We’re going to be late.”  He frowned at the way his words slurred across his lips; they tasted on smoke and iron.  John tried to lick his lips again but gave it up as too compliated

“Late is the least of our problems,” Alan muttered, leaving one hand across John’s chest as he turned to rummage with his other through one of John’s many work trolleys. John frowned; the smoke in his mind was giving way to a sense of nausea.  “I know you have what we need.  John, do I give you another shot?  Or have I given you too much.”

John had to concentrate to force his eyes to focus on the syringe in Alan’s fingers.  Ketamine.  “I’m hurt?”

Alan’s little laugh was closer to a sob. “Yeah, John.  And I think you need a hospital.”

John shook his head.  “No.  No one can know.”  The mantra was breathed into the air to mingle with the taste of smoke.

Alan’s hands were fluttering, and John managed to lift his lolling head.  His suit was sliced open, the plates peeled back from their ragged edges.

The blast.  With recognition came the first curling tendrils of pain.  “How bad?”

Alan squeezed his eyes shut for just a moment.  “The plates took the shrapnel, but the fireball got through the holes they left.  John, these look bad.”  He leaned in, staring to John’s eyes.  “And that fall didn’t do you any favours either.”

John tried to focus – the painkillers were dulling the edges, but the headache was pounding.  “Burns.  Cool.  Clean. Sterile wrap.”  He chanted the instructions like a mantra, like a prayer.

Alan was best when he had a goal.  John laid back and stared up at the warehouse ceiling, high above them, as Alan raided the medicine boxes that John had been compiling.  The first application of cream was so cold it almost burned him again, but the dull throbbing lost some of its threat.  “Bleeding?” he asked.

Alan was peeling back more of John’s suit, slicing the weak points and joins to ease the layers back.  “No.  Blistering already.”

“Good.”  John concentrated on breathing as Alan worked methodically, cleaning and slathering on the antiseptic cream and layering on the sterile covers.  By the time he was done, Alan had his breathing mostly under control.  “Okay, it looks like the suit took the worse of it.  How are you feeling?”

“Headache,” John admitted.  “Pupils?”

It took Alan a second to parse the request.  “Umm, okay?  Just a second….”  John winced but let Alan shine a flashlight across his face.  “I think they’re equal?”

“Then I’m taking a nap.  Water, tylenol,” he rolled his head slightly, feeling the pull and ache of bruised and stretched muscles all down his shoulders.

“Should you, you might have a concussion….” Alan began, hands starting to flutter again.

“Best thing.  Wake me in a few hours, to be sure.”  John could already feel his eyes drifting closed.  There was something else, but the ketamine was wearing off and the burns were stinging and his head was throbbing and sleep was too strong a temptation.  

He’d remember what it was when he woke.

Alan stood and watched John drift off despite the work lights shining down on his battered body.  He began counting John’s breathes just to have something to anchor onto.

Unheard by either of them from where he’d left it by his keyboard, John’s phone continued to flash  _incoming call_  over and over again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> drdone requested: gets hurt real bad and has to call for help and John finds him almost too late?

He shouldn’t have gone out at all.  But it was just a quick run for more supplies; John’s burns were healing, but he was still not fully recovered, and the warehouse hadn’t been set up to be a permanent home.  They needed a few things.

Alan tried not to think about why they were living there now; it was too big an idea to wrap his head around right now.  

His backpack was snug against his back, black and ubiquitous and stuffed full of the basics.  The little toggles for the straps rattled against his ribs as he ran across another rooftop and swung out across the avenue far below.  The flashing of sirens caught his eye, and Alan came to land against the side of a building, twisting around until he could see where the alarm was coming from.

Robbery in progress.  It was late enough to be early; the police would be there soon.

A quick web to make their job easier; heavens knew the city’s friendly neighbourhood spiderman hadn’t been helping much lately.

Alan dropped the last storey onto the pavement and sauntered through the door, noting with a raised eyebrow under his hood the bent and jimmied lock.  “Hey fellas,” he announced, flicking his wrist to web the two guys helping themselves against the very till they were robbing.

His spidersense was on constant low-level alert these days; it’s the only reason he can think of he didn’t sense the third until he heard the shotgun blast.

Alan didn’t remember running, didn’t remember the climb.  It was like the entire world blinked, and from one moment to the next he teleported to the roof.

The pain finally registered as Alan started at the bloody glove print his hand had left on the wall.  He was a good dozen blocks from the warehouse, and he’d doped John with a sleeping pill before leaving, so he’d sleep the entire time Alan was away.

He was on his own, just like when he’d started.

He breathed hard, leaning against the wall until he pressed the fear all the way back down.

There was a lot of blood.

He needed to get back,  but it was hard to lift his arms, let alone fire a web.  His first attempt went wide, sailing out into the night.  He winced and whimpered as the motion jolted his ribs.

The thought of walking twelve blocks in costume didn’t bear thinking about it.  He’d raided the pharmacy through the skylight, leaving cash on the counter; he hadn’t packed jeans, or even a hoodie, to keep his backpack as empty as possible.

Alan wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss that was making his thoughts wander down useless side paths; it was probably why time seemed to be slipping and stretching.  Probably why he was hallucinating the sound of the pod.

That was the pod.

Alan half staggered across the roof as the pod came in low.  John’s grip on the controls was white knuckled.  “John…?”

“Get in,” John hissed through gritted teeth, like it was sheer willpower alone that was keeping the pod in the air.  The trip back to the warehouse took less than a minute, even faster than a web, and they hit the ground with more than a bump as above them the roof automatically closed once more.

John hauled Alan out and together they limped over to the table that was now the heart of their medical area.  “What was it?”

“Shotgun,” Alan admitted, wincing at the sting.  “Close range.”

“Heavier plates,” John muttered in a  _told-you-so_  voice as his shaking hands helped Alan pulled his suit back.  The air in the warehouse was chilly on bare skin, but John’s fingers were almost burning as he examined Alan’s ribs.  “I see pellets.  This is going to suck,” he added, one of his hands coming to rest on the nape of Alan’s neck as he turned to the medical tool box.

Alan grabbed John’s wrist, ignoring the burning in his side, the dizzy feeling of blood loss, to pull John over. “How?  The sleeping pill…”

John was as pale as a ghost.  “Your suit alarms all went off just as it was kicking in,” he admitted quietly.  “And, well, you can override a sleeping pill.”

Alan followed the line of John’s gaze to his thigh.  The bloom of blood was bright against the grey of his sweatpants.  “You  _stabbed yourself?”_

“No-where vital.  It will heal,” John added like it was no big deal.  “And it woke me up.”

Alan laughed just to stop himself crying.  “If you pull the shotgun pellets out of my ribs, I’ll bandage your thigh,” he offered shakily.  “Holy fuck, John.”

“Hey,” John said as firmly as he could as he caught Alan’s jaw.  “I will always come find you.  _Always._  You’ve got to know that now, right?”

Alan rubbed his cheeks with the back of his gloved hand.  “Yeah,” he said thickly.  “You look out for me, and I’ll look out for you. Come on, you idiot.  Bandages, let’s go.”

John’s hand slid down Alan’s jaw and around his neck, pulling him in for a lopsided hug.  Alan clung to him for a long moment before they wordlessly pulled apart.

Once they were both bandaged, he and John leaned against each other and limped across to the campbeds set up in the corner.  John didn’t say a word as Alan crawled on to John’s and curled up like the little spoon.  It was almost too big to handle, everything that had happened, everything he was feeling.  The fear and the worry, and the regret.

So Alan focused on the throb in his ribs and the warm, steady presence of John’s arm slung carefully over his, and let himself drift off to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Virgil sat at the kitchen counter and tried to remember how to breathe.

In for five seconds.  Hold for five seconds.  Out for five seconds.  Over and over again.

He’d been doing that for the better part of the last hour, and he still didn’t feel calm.  Out on the balcony, dad was on the phone again, to Kyrano or someone else, Virgil wasn’t sure.  But even from this distance, Virgil could see how rumpled his dad’s shirt was, the way he endlessly ran his hand through his hair, the short, staccato pacing along the deck’s railing.  Virgil couldn’t remember ever seeing his dad so close to panic.

It had been three days now.

At first, no-one had been worried.  Dad had been kinda mad, and Virgil suspected he was feeling guilty about that now.  But John and Alan had been up to something for months, always disappearing, showing up late, keeping secrets from the rest of the family.  They’re weren’t as subtle as they thought they were, but now Virgil knew he wasn’t the only one worrying that the pair weren’t as obvious as everyone thought either.

So when the two had been late to Scott’s “welcome back from college” dinner, dad had growled under his breath and reached for the phone. The expected thundering died slowly as call after call went to voice mail until the mail box was full.

Only then did they realize that the GPS for John’s phone was pinging his room. Virgil and Gordon had tossed the place, but apart from a dozen weird gadgets and inventions, there had been nothing odd.  Just no phone.

It was Brains who found the spoofer, high on a bookshelf.  Virgil turned away from the expression on their fathers’ face as he turned it over and over in his hands.

From then on, the night turned into morning on a wave of phone calls and hurried meetings in the penthouse foyer.  Mr Kyrano left and returned with a squad of dour-faced men in serviceable black.  Scott left to do a round of the hospitals.  No-one said morgues, but Virgil knew that was on the call list too.

Everyone kept asking if he knew anything, suspected anything.  Virgil knew there was a secret.  He just had no idea what it was.

There had been no call, no signal, just endless, empty silence.  At this point, Virgil would even take a ransom note.  That would at least mean that John and Alan had been taken from them, and hadn’t just stolen away silently of their own free will.

The door to the balcony was loud on its sliders.  “….get my tablet,” his dad was saying, his brow furrowed and his lips tight as he grabbed his device and leaned on the counter next to Virgil.  “Yeah, I’ve got them.  Give me five minutes to look over them, and I’ll call you back.”

“Dad?” Virgil asked warily as Jeff hung up the phone and tossed it angrily onto the countertop.  Even upside down, Virgil could see the file was a spreadsheet, something accountant-y.

“One of Kyrano’s men was looking into John’s accounts, seeing if there was a money trail.”

Virgil sat up straighter. “Is there?”

Jeff’s eyes were darting over the lines and columns.  “These go back months,” he breathed, ignoring Virgil’s question. “Acquisitions, transfers…there’s got to be another account.”  Jeff’s fingers flashed as he made a few notes.  “What was he doing in the fabber labs?”

“Dad?” Virgil asked more forcefully.

Jeff’s head snapped up.  “I think,” he said slowly, testing his idea.  “We need to go see what your brother was making.”

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> More spiderman!au!!!! I would like to see alan save his entire family but getting injured in the process, john concerned and the rest of the family shocked, alan practically near death! Please?!
> 
> and i managed "family is shocked" aka: i zoomed. sorrynotsorry

Virgil felt like they’d been on a city-wide treasure hunt. Whether John and Alan were the prize, or the pirates, was yet to be seen, but the clues were tantalizing.

There had been midnight runs on the industrial fabricators, nested layers of fake bank accounts, and at least three fraudulent employees as far as they could tell. All that was missing was a partridge and a pear tree.

Scott had been recalled from his circuit of the hospitals, Mr Kyrano from darker places. They had bent their heads over the scraps of mismatched information and tried to line up the jagged edges.

It had been Scott who’d found the lease to a warehouse, buried behind the titles for three shell companies. 

Dawn was coming later and later as the air grew colder. Virgil turtled down into his overcoat in the pre-dawn chill and stared up at the row of dingy, identically grimy warehouses. “3A, right?”

Scott nodded, his hands tucked in the hoodie he’d found in the back of the car. “Do you think they’re in there?”

“If they are,” Virgil murmured as Mr Kyrano came back from his sweep, bowing his head with their father in quiet conclave. “I really, really want to know why.”

“Boys,” their father cut in, striding across the cracked concrete. “Stay with the car.”

Scott laughed. “With respect sir, like hell.” He fell into step behind their father, and Virgil felt himself pulled along with the tide.

The doors were locked. Mr Kyrano smashed it open with a well-placed boot.

Inside were crates, piled in a ring, from within which spilled light out of place in a warehouse. “I think we’re in the right place,” Kyrano muttered.

“What makes you say that?” their father asked, pulled up from striding across the warehouse floor by Kyrano’s sudden still wariness.

In response, he nodded at the TI-modded motion detector aimed at the door, almost hidden in the shadows. Jeff stared at it a long moment and drew a deep breath.

“JOHN GLENN TRACY, ALAN SHEPPARD TRACY, FRONT AND CENTRE OR SO I SWEAR…”

There was a moment of hung silence, dust drifting down off the rafters.

Then Virgil was sure he heard the faintest whisper, like an argument. His heart lifted and he almost cried in relief when Alan appeared at the edge of the ring of crates, looking like a waif in the oversized hoodie he had obviously just yanked on. “Oh, hey, dad,” Alan drawled, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar again, and not that he’d been missing for nearly four days now. Alan’s hands, hidden by the long sleeves of John’s hoodie, twisted together nervously. “What brings you this far downtown…”

Virgil was moving, but their dad was faster, almost teleporting across the warehouse floor to scoop Alan into a bear hug.

That Virgil was right on his tail meant he heard Alan’s whimper of pain, the way his face went white. Their dad froze, setting Alan carefully down. “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Relax dad,” Alan soothed, patting their father’s shoulder with his left hand. His right, Virgil noticed, was cradled gingerly against his chest. “Everything’s fine.”

Jeff had obviously noticed too, given the way his hand went to Alan’s right shoulder. Everyone saw Alan flinch back. “Alan, what’s going on? Where’s your brother?”

“Here.” Virgil wasn’t the only one to gasp. John looked like shit, his face pale and screwed up with pain, leaning awkwardly on a makeshift crutch. Bandages were visible around the edges of his pulled out t-shirt. “And what’s say we continue this conversation sitting down?”

Scott had come around, and that John let himself slump into his older brother, let Scott take some of his weight as they hobbled around the stacked crates spoke volumes. They limped slowly into the light, and Virgil swore under his breath as he took in the rings of gear crates and tools, work stations and computers. The medical trolley left abandoned next to a couple of fold out camp beds still had a pile of bloody gauze in a tray on the top. The blood had dried to a dark, earthy brown. “Who’s is that?” It was a stupid question, but Virgil couldn’t stop himself from asking it.

That John and Alan had to have a silent conversation to sort out the answer made Virgil sick to his stomach. There was a slump to Alan’s shoulders now, of resignation and of one preparing to meet his fate.

“Sit,” Jeff ordered, his eyes glancing back to the tray of bloody gauze and medical supplies. “Talk.”

Another silent conversation, two brothers shoulder to shoulder even hunched on a camp bed that was slumping under their combined weight. “Well,” Alan said at last. “It started with a spider…”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:  
> Will you make another Spiderman AU in thunderbirds universe? Idk, maybe how they reacted or smthing?

“So let me get this straight,” Jeff said, looking like he was in deep physical pain as he sorted out what was going on.  “You were bitten by a spider that, apparently,  _rewrote your DNA_ , and decided that your next step was to fight crime?”  

Before Alan could respond, Jeff turned on where John was sitting, his head tilted to rest of the back of the sofa, his eyes closed.  Only the flexing on the hand resting protectively over his ribs gave any indication that he was even still awake.  The trip back to the penthouse had taken a lot out of him.  “And you? Instead of  _telling me_  when you found out, you decided to  _help him?”_

John didn’t even open his eyes throughout the yelling. Virgil wondered when their brother had gotten so fearless.  “It seemed like the best course of action at the time,” John answered calmly.

“At the time?” Jeff muttered, almost incandescent with rage.  Virgil had seen this fury a lot the last few days, and he understood the deep well of fear that drove it.  “John, I am two seconds away from just dumping you in the nearest ER as it is, do not test me.”

There was a put-upon sigh, and John stood slowly, pain telegraphed in every move.  But despite the carefulness, the movement had the sense of an avalanche; deceptive slow but completely unstoppable.  “Twenty-seven,” he said quietly once he and their father were nose to nose.

Jeff was not the kind of man to be easily derailed.  “Twenty-seven what, John?  Times you’ve nearly been killed?”

John’s smile was half a degree off a sneer.  “That’s only two,” he corrected like it was no big deal.  “But we’ve saved twenty-seven lives.  Direct, imminent danger, dodged a bullet,  _saved_.”

Virgil was almost gnawing on his fist.  “Two?” he squeaked, rocking back into his seat at the twinned glares that almost pinned him to the cushions.  He exhaled as they turned back to each other.

Jeff rubbed his temples, visibly pulling together his composure.  “Two is two times too many,” he said at last. “And while I’m sure those twenty-seven people are grateful, we have police, and paramedics, and other people trained to do this.”

“They can’t do what we can.”

Jeff looked deliberately at where John’s arm was still curling protectively around his side. “And what’s that, John? Get hurt? Terrify your family by going missing?  Where will it end, John, when you’re dead?  No, this ends tonight.”

“No.”

It took the entire room too long to realize it’s not John who’s answered.  In his head, Virgil thinks of Alan as tiny and meek and small. But Alan is walking across the room to where his father and brother were caught in deadlock in a way that instantly dominated the room.  

“Alan, please…” their father rallied.

Virgil knew he wasn’t the only one to see that, rather than agreeing with their father and sending their littlest brother back to his corner, John shifted subtly to turn the dialogue into a three-way exchange.

Alan took the motion from his brother like it’s his due.  “I have this…this gift,” he explained to Jeff. “I didn’t ask for it, but it’s mine all the same.  I can do things the police and the paramedics can’t.  And if I can, then I figure maybe I should.  It’s my power, so it’s my responsibility,” he added with a little shrug that made him look much older than he was.

“Alan,” their father began, and even Virgil knew he’d struck the wrong tone.

Moving as one, John and Alan stepped together, a unmistakably united front.  There’s a second of silent communication, and Virgil realized this was what they were like…out there.  A unit, backing each other up to the hilt, no words needed.  They still haven’t gotten the story behind Alan’s wince, John’s limp, but Virgil knows they’re related without knowing the details of how and when and who.  “We’re doing this,” Alan said flatly as John nodded for emphasis.  “Accept that, or get out of our way.”

The moment hung in the air, fragile as glass.

Jeff stared at Alan and John, side by side, then glanced over at Scott, primed to pounce where he stood next to where Virgil was watching with his hands over his mouth.  They all saw the moment he made his choice, the way his shoulders deflated, the dip of his head.  “Stubborn fools,” he muttered, squeezing the bridge of his nose.  “But if I can’t stop you, then we’re making it as safe as possible.”  He let go of his nose to point at John.  “We’re checking everything you made on the fabbers - yes, I know about that.  Every resource will be available to you.”  The finger swung to Alan.  “And no more sneaking out.  I will know where you are at all times.  You will receive training.  You will not miss a day more of school because of this.  Those are  _my_ terms. Deal?”

Another moment of silent communication.  “Deal,” John said for both of them with a regal bow of his head.

Virgil glanced up at Scott.  Their dad obviously thought he’d taken the reins of the situation.  But from the look on Scott’s face, Virgil knew that he heavily doubted that too.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> drdone asked:  
> HEY, when you're able, I'd like to request another part of spiderman!alan, because holy shit I love that thing. One where Alan shows off his abilities to the others?

As far as Virgil could tell, John and Alan were adhering to the terms of Jeff’s deal.  The warehouse had been cleared out, all the elements re-assembled in a hastily secured sub-level under John’s careful eye.  They’d not been sneaking out, always back by curfew, done everything asked of them, always dutiful and correct.

“So,” Scott announced himself as he dropped himself down onto the sofa next to where Virgil was absolutely just reading his book and not watching for movement on the balcony  _at all_.  “Kyrano’s got twenty riding on John having a second secret base out there somewhere.”

Virgil snorted and put down the book he hadn’t been reading.  “Fifty says there’s at least three.”

Scott chuckled and put his feet up on the coffee table, opening staring out at the balcony.  “Sucker’s bet.”  He sighed out at the darkness.  “When are they due back?”

Virgil glanced at his watch.  Ten minutes to midnight.  “Pretty much…” his words were cut off by a soft thrum, almost drowned out by a childish giggle as Alan barreled over the railing and almost skipped to a stop right on the threshold.  He knocked on the glass, and even through the mask, Virgil had the clear sense that Alan was making faces at them.

Virgil was pushing himself to his feet, half a second behind Scott as the glass door slid open and Alan bounded over the carpet on silent feet.  “Hihihi,” he grinned, tugging his mask back with a practice sweep of his hand.  He was almost vibrating, bouncing on his heels as he glanced over his shoulder to check where his partner was.

If Alan was energy barely constrained, then John moved like he had all the time in the world.  His latest toy was folding up like origami that moved in twelve dimension as he stepped forward towards them.  His mask was already off, and the light turned his hair a brilliant gold against the grey-black matte of his own suit.  “You didn’t need to wait up for us,” he said quietly as he fidgeted with his gloves.

“Yeah, well, we did,” Scott said to John even as he slung an arm over Alan’s shoulders in an easy move, tugging his baby brother close.  “Good night, sprout?” he added to Alan.

Alan was almost glowing with success.  “Just a little stroll in the moonlight,” Alan said, almost biting his lip trying to be cool.  He lost the battle.  “And then this guy tried to rob a bodega, and so I went…” Alan mined throwing webs.  “And then John went…” Virgil raised an eyebrow at John at the slamming drop of a gesture Alan was making, but John was calmly unbuckling his new harness and seemed not to be paying attention to the floor show.  “And then the cops showed up, so we stuck him in a dumpster and…” Alan flopped back onto the sofa, grinning.  “Team Spider peaced out.”

“Stop calling us that,” John grumbled good-naturedly as he swung his backpack around to hang by a strap off his arm before it finally slid to the floor with a heavy  _thump._ Alan grinned, clicking his tongue, and John appealed to a higher power.  “Scott, tell him Team Spider is a stupid name.”

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Scott replied, a schoolyard taunt that made Alan laugh regardless.  “Come on, you two.  It’s tomorrow already.  Time Team Spider was in bed.”

John scowled.  “I just need to put this away,” he said, hoisting his new bit of kit back onto his shoulders.

“He means tinker until dawn,” Alan corrected. Virgil wasn’t sure what the little device John produced with a flick of his wrist actually did. But whatever it was had Alan giggling again even as he leaped straight upwards from sitting to latch securely onto the blank white ceiling high above them.  Still laughing, he scurried in a furious patter of arms and legs to the spiral staircase that connected the family levels and vanished upwards.

Virgil turned, wide-eyed to Scott who looked as shocked as Virgil himself felt.  Beyond him, John sighed, unimpressed.  “Guess it’s me packing everything up.  Again.”  He nodded at his brothers, taking in their stunned faces.  “Don’t worry,” he grinned, showing a sudden flash of teeth.  “You get used to him doing that. Eventually.”  John moved silently but much more normally as he disappeared down the stairs.

“So,” Scott said at last.  “Team Spider huh?”

Virgil found himself craning his neck, his hand reaching almost on instinct to check that there was still a good twelve feet of air between him and the ceiling high above.  “Team Spider,” he agreed numbly.  “Yeah.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> more spidermanau please !!!!

This was part of the arrangement.

Alan shot John a bashful look of amusement, but John was too busy carefully wrapping his hands to seem to notice.  Alan sighed, thwarted, and returned his attention to Mr Kyrano’s careful lecture.

Behind her father, Kayo was pacing like a caged tiger across the width of the gym.  Alan wasn’t sure what she’d been told, but he knew that Kayo could keep secrets.  

“Eyes front, Alan.”

Alan snapped around back to Mr Kyrano.  “Yes sir, sorry sir.”  If Mr Kyrano reported back to Jeff that his superpowered son was lax in his lessons, then Alan was grounded.  Literally, physically, and metaphorically off air.

Alan shifted his feet and tried to concentrate.  But Mr Kyrano seemed ready to explain in  _excruciating_ detail the fundamentals.  “Any questions so far, Alan?”

Alan found his hand instinctively raising, and he yanked it back down.  “You do know we’ve been doing this for a while, right?  Also,” he added, glancing over his shoulder as John finally joined him on the mat, tugging his long sleeved shirt down over his wrists.  “Say it with me, John.”

“Proportional strength of a spider,” John replied dutifully, folding his hands in front of him as he looked directly at Kyrano with a steady, unflinching gaze.  “It sounds weird, but it’s true,” he added blandly.

“Strength means nothing without skill,” Kyrano replied evenly, his gaze moving from one boy to the other. “And you may be unusually strong, Alan, but John, as far as I am aware, is not.  Tanusha?” he added, barely turning his head. “May I use you for a demonstration?”

She stepped around her father, smooth as a snake, her eyes locked with John’s.  John returned her stare impassively.  “I assume the terms are to the mat or tap out?” he asked without breaking eye contact with Kayo.

Mr Kyrano nodded as he stepped off the mat, yanking Alan with him.

Kayo rocked back half a step, dropping into a perfect attack form.  John didn’t move, hands still gently folded together in front of him.  “This is ridiculous,” he breathed with a little eye roll.

Kayo took that split second of inattention to strike.  John’s still folded hands came up on instinct.  Alan winced at the crackle of static in the air, the blue hum that flashed white as Kayo bounced off it and landed in a heavy sprawl on the mat.

Even as Kyrano broke to rush to his daughter’s side, John moved forward to very gently place a bare foot lightly on her clavicle.  “Yield?” he asked mildly, like he was commenting on the weather.

Alan could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Mr Kyrano show strong emotion.  “What was that?” the older man snarled as he knelt by his daughter, ignoring the way she tried to wave him off.

John held up his hands, letting his sleeves fall to reveal two slim silvery bracelets, filigree wires snaking under the tape as they twined towards his fingers.  “As you said, he has the super power.  I don’t.  So I have to keep up in other ways.”  John let his hands fall with a flattering smile that didn’t reach his eyes.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to do today.”

Mr Kyrano didn’t call him back.  Only when the door to the building’s gym slammed shut did he speak again, murmuring something to Kayo in a language Alan didn’t speak.

“I’m fine.  It stung more than anything,” she muttered, pushing him aside to get to her feet.  She eyed Alan warily.  “Do you spark?”  Alan shook his head, wide-eyed.  “Bite? Shoot venom?”

“Webs only,” he admitted.  “And dad told me no webbing in the Tower.” Even though they had dissolved right on schedule, his father had been less than pleased with the lines Alan left on the ceilings.

“Right,” Kayo said, showing teeth as she rolled up her metaphorical sleeves.  “Get on the mat, let’s go.”

Two hours later, Alan caught the ice pack hurled at his head as he limped into the kitchen.  “I hate you,” he told John.

John didn’t even look up from his tablet.  “I can live with that.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:  
> spiderman au maybe with alan dealing with being a hero because being a hero is hard

They’d talked about it, in the way they talked about hard things now, crouched on a roof looking out over the lights of the city.  Being discovered had changed things, shaken their balance. They couldn’t show weakness; any crack in the facade would have their family bear down on them to tear this duty, this privilege away.

So they couldn’t show weakness. In that they were of one mind.

And so before they returned each night, they’d stop at what John called his little bird’s nest.  It was a nook compared to the warehouse, an unfinished corner of a stalled office redevelopment.  But it was in a blind corner, the nearest street light consistently, mysteriously out of order.

Behind boarded up windows, there was running water, a few stowed crates that, even if the developers wandered by during the day, wouldn’t raise any alarms. 

This evening, Alan makes it first, used now to the trajectories, the best place to fix a web for an easy swing up and over the balustrade.  He’s almost done walking the loop, checking the door, the little security measures John had put in place by the time his brother slips through the open window and moves the board back to cover the gap.

They move in a silent ballet as they unstow the crates, run the taps.  They’ve done this often enough over the past few months that they don’t need to discuss it any more.

Kyrano was getting suspicious, watching them both closely. But John thinks in some other dimension, considering the tells of every little sign.  They’re careful to clean up any blood or soot with products that leave no scent or sign.  Alan knows Kyrano just well enough now to know he’d take an absence as much of a clue as anything, would quite literally sniff out the traces of soap and interrogate him for what they were trying to hide.

Tonight it’s soot – John had made his own exit with his little fire crackers, and Alan was sure he still had rubble in his ears.  He winced, unzipping his suit enough to chase down an itch, scowling at John as his questing fingers scraped out a smear of brick dust and grit.

John just smiled to himself, far too pleased for Alan’s liking.  He flicked the grit at John’s face and went back to cleaning himself up.  “Do you think Scott’s getting suspicious?  Or Virgil?” Alan asked as he zipped himself back together, checked out his sleeves for any last incriminating traces.  John and explosives no longer worried him, but the way their other brothers had taken to waiting up for them was making Alan antsy.

John shook his head as he locked the crates and shoved them back under cover.  “They’re still baffled at the whole…spider-ness of you,” he said.  “Keep on freaking them out.”

Alan grinned despite himself.  “Did you see Scott’s face when I climbed on the ceiling last week?”

John chuckled to himself.  “Good times,” he agreed.  He paused halfway through re-sealing his gauntlet.  “Do you remember,” he said at last, still staring at nothing.  “When you were little, you used to sleep walk.”

Alan vaguely remembered waking up places that weren’t his bedroom.  But he could see where John was going with this.  “Are you foreseeing a sudden recurrence?” he asked, impressed despite himself.

John refocused on the present and winked.  “Take a nap on the ceiling over Scott’s bed,” he suggested. “Ten bucks says he’ll hit the high notes when he realizes you’re there.”

“Twenty says he’ll fall out of bed first,” Alan replied.  Two gloved hands clapped together, sealing the bet before they stepped out onto the narrow concrete edge that overlooked the street.  “After you,” Alan said with a tiny bow.

“So kind,” John murmured, his words muffled behind his mask.

“Meet you at the tower.”  He waited, watching John line up and launch himself across the street.  Glancing back to check one last time there was no sign they’d been here, Alan reached out and thwipped a line up high.

Swinging across the road, Alan took a deep breath and practiced his smile under his mask so that when he finally touched down on the balcony of Tracy Tower, it felt natural and unforced.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:  
> more thunderbirds spiderman au maybe alan meeting one of spiderman big bads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (despite writing this, I’m not actually all that big a spiderman-stan so most of what I know is based off the tv cartoon. hence the increasing deviations from source :) fair warning *g*)

Alan’s head whipped around, webs flying on instinct as he struggled to keep up with the shape.  “Alan, fall back!” John’s voice snapped in his ear from three blocks behind him.

“Are you seeing this?” Alan replied, panting hard as he used his whole body to fire off line after line as he raced high over the avenue.  “Whatever it is, it’s  _moving_.”

“And big,” John agreed, the sound of his zipline echoing over the comms. “And pissed off. Hence me telling you to  _fall back_.”

The sound of crunching masonry a block ahead had Alan finally swinging up to land lightly on a water tank, balanced easily on the slope on his toes and fingers.  It was as dark as the city got, yet the converging flashing lights strobed shadows like nightmares onto the buildings around the cacophony.

A faint whizzing noise marked John’s arrival.  Alan skipped easily off the tank to drop to the roof right beside him.  “What could you see?” John asked, his fingers flashing over his gauntlet interface.

“Big, fast, and grumpy,” Alan replied with a shrug.  “John he…well, he moved like me.”

“You swing off balconies,” John corrected.  “You don’t swing them off the building. Ah,” he added, holding his arm out to let a tiny plate detach, its shape morphing like origami as it hovered in the air.  “Go on, shoo,” John told it, gesturing with a flick of his fingers.

The tiny drone bobbed as if in acknowledgement of the command and buzzed off towards the riot of noise and sirens beyond the next building.

“You will tell me if you make them sentient, right?” Alan asked even as he gathered around to peer at the tiny, watery hologram John was projecting into the palm of his hand.

“Sure, Allie,” John murmured in a way that failed to inspire confidence.  “Woah, look at that.”

Alan tried to swallow at the tangle of tentacles whipping around the frame, but found his mouth dry and his tongue too big.  “Suddenly,” he said weakly. “I’m glad I was bitten by a radioactive spider and not an actual  _kraken_.”

John was hunched in, peering at the scrolling data read-out his drone was feeding him.  “I don’t think he’s like you,” John said without looking over.  “I’m getting ferrous-magnetic readings, that’s EM…” He silenced the feed with a tightly closed fist.  “I think he’s more like  _me_.”

They both turned at the screech of metal, an inhumane howl of machinery.  They watched the lumbering shape scamper up the side of a building like it was a sandcastle and disappear into the darkness over by the docks.  “Are we going after it?” Alan asked, not sure which answer he wanted less.

John’s shoulders were rigid, his mask inscrutably blank in the night.  “We need more intel.  This isn’t some idiots rolling a bodega.” His hand clapped Alan’s shoulder roughly.  “Let’s figure out what kraken-man is first, before we get in range of those tentacles.”

Alan shuddered delicately.  “And I know what’s got a starring role in  _my_ nightmares tonight.”  His eyes were drawn back to the sound of more sirens arriving, securing the scene and bathing it in red and blue lights.  “And for what it’s worth?  He may be machine-assisted, but something tells me he’s  _nothing_  like you.”

John ignored the comment.  “Come on,” he said instead.  “Let’s see if we can bug a patrol car and find out what the police know.”

“Sounds fun,” Alan said weakly, watching John run lightly to the edge of the building and disappear over the edge.  “Wait, bug? How long have you been sitting on that?  Jay?”  Scowling under his mask, Alan threw a web and dropped down after his brother.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:  
> Can you do something with the Spider-Man au with the brothers see Alan fight (I zoomed)

Kayo eyed John warily and kept diagonally across the room from him at all times.

John seemed not to notice her hard stare as he watched Alan dully follow Kyrano’s training drill, boredom leaking out of every pore.  “And done,” Alan announced, bowing exaggeratedly at Kyrano as he stomped to a finish.

“Is that it?” John asked before Kyrano could draw breath.  “Everybody is kung fu fighting?” he added sarcastically. 

Kyrano moved calmly, but Alan could sense a edge emerging, honed by his displeasure.  He still hadn’t forgiven John for his little trick last time, and had made him show Kyrano his wrists and arms before even being allowed into the gym.  

Kyrano turned now to almost square up with John.  “Do you have anything to add to this training session?” he asked archly.  “The first you haven’t skipped in a month,” he added.

Alan knew exactly what John’s slow, lazy grin meant, and he stepped forward sharply to try and get between the two men.  “Ta-da, drill done,” he babbled. “About time we were off, come on John…”

Kyrano stopped him with a gesture.  “Your brother has yet to do more than stand there and pass judgement.”  Kyrano stepped back and off to the side.  “So, Mr Tracy, how would you like to conduct the training?”

Alan shook out his shoulders instinctively as John stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweat pants and rocked back slightly on the balls of his feet.  “Thank you,” John said like this was his right.  “Allie, warehouse rules, okay?”

Alan settled more easily on his feet, adrenaline pumping, sharpening his senses and setting his blood pumping.  He could hear Kayo’s sniff in the corner, the sound of the far door opening, the tick of the clock on the wall.  But at the heart of his focus was John’s smile, the slightest tension in John’s wrists and arms as he found what he wanted in his pockets. This was how he really trained, and by now the sudden thrill of anticipation was almost Pavlovian. “Ready.”

John pulled back, but Alan was already moving, spider-sense singing in his brain as the first sharp crack of explosives filled the space where he just was.  Unlike the dull drills, John forced him to think in all available dimensions, to look at every surface and object for alternate uses, to break the habits of a lifetime before the bite.  The goal was to touch John without getting hit, but despite bouncing from angle to angle, every time he turned to approach, John was no longer there.  The dance between them sped up, the rhythm set by the crackle and pop of John’s little training tools and the slap of bare foot on the matting, the walls, the ceiling.

He was barely aware of the new figures lining up on the other side of the mat, except to note their presence and dismiss them as not a threat.

Only when he dropped from the ceiling at John’s single, sharp handclap of conclusion did Alan realize it was Scott and Virgil and dad, open-mouthed and staring as they almost clung to the walls by the rack of practice sticks.

John’s little sparklers, as he called them, had left a grey-white haze in the air.  John wafted the smoke away with a practiced flick of his wrist and nodded at Alan in approval.  “Spider,” he said over his shoulder to Kyrano, ignoring their audience.  “When was the last time you saw an arachnid stand on the floor and put up its arms to fight?”  John waved his arms in a mockery of Kyrano’s carefully managed training poses.  He turned and nodded again at Alan, a little gesture for just the two of them.

Alan’s eyes widened, but before he could blurt out a warning, John was diving off to his left like he had a spider sense of his own, rolling with the momentum.  He came up in a single fluid movement, one foot forward to where Kayo had pounced at him in a low tackle.  “Round two, Miss Kyrano?” John asked pleasantly.

“Clear the mat,” Kayo growled, shrugging off her father’s steadying touch as she stalked forward, closing the distance between them once more.  “He can move.  Can you?”

“Let’s find out,” John purred, remarkably unconcerned.  Alan’s spider-senses were tingling as he watched them circle each other.  “To the mat?”

“To first blood?” was Kayo’s counter-offer.

“Enough!” Kyrano was a softly spoken man, but Jeff Tracy could roar like a lion.  “You,” he said, pointing at John.  “My office, now.  Alan, go get cleaned up, your brothers want to take you out for lunch.”  Without waiting, he turned and stormed out, expecting his word to be obeyed like law.

John hadn’t broken eye contact with Kayo.  “Drats,” he murmured drolly.  “Foiled again in your plans to try and beat me to a pulp. Until next time, Miss Kyrano?”

Kayo’s lip twisted in a snarl as John bowed low, almost courtly, walking backwards until he stepped off the mat.  Twisting, he almost skipped the last few steps to the doorway and was gone.

Alan looked from Kayo to Kyrano to his brothers.  Wincing, he sidled up to the nearest wall and scuttled for the exit.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> drdone asked:  
> Can we get the convo between John and his dad in spiderman!alan au then? I love it so goddamn much.

They were a study in contrasts.  John, slender and calm, followed in the wake of his heavier father who was moving with a dynamic, furious energy as he swept into his office and around to his desk.

Jeff sat heavily and glared balefully across the desk at where John had come to a halt on the rug a foot before the desk.  “Would you believe,” Jeff said at last as the silence stretched to breaking point.  “That I thought it would be Alan who’d be testing my patience and you that would be okay with my terms.  And yet Kyrano tells me Alan’s been to every session and you’re the one causing headaches.”

John just shrugged. 

“That’s it? A shrug?”

John rolled his neck until something clicked.  “I’ve always hated wasting time.  So I can’t really understand why you’re so surprised now.”  

He sounded mildly exasperated, a tone that made Jeff pine for the days where a grounding was an effective punishment.  “You think us trying to keep you safe is a waste of time?”

John hooked a chair with his ankle and dragged it close enough to flop into.  “We were doing fine before.”

Jeff had to laugh, a bitter, surprised sound.  “By ‘doing fine,’ are you perhaps referring to being stuck in a run-down warehouse, the pair of you bandaged like Egyptian mummies?”

“Well,” John acknowledged the hit with a graceful little incline of his head, a gesture that echoed Lucy’s old way of conceding a point without conceding ground.  “You didn’t find us at our best, I’ll grant you that.  But we’re not made of glass.”

“Which is why you’re still allowed out of this building at all,” Jeff sighed, rising to come around and perch on the front of his desk.  “John, I don’t think you get how strong my urge is to wrap you all in cotton wool and keep you all safe is normally, let alone after…everything.”  He fidgeted with his wedding band, spinning it around and around his finger.  “I don’t, because I like to humour myself that I’ve taught you boys enough to make your own way in the world.  But this? Spiders and spandex and all those things you’re dreaming up in that lab downstairs?  I don’t understand it,” he admitted. “I don’t understand it at all, and that  _terrifies_ me.”

John’s smiling, but it’s not that annoying smug, knowing smile he’s taken to wearing lately.  He leaned forward and caught his father’s hands, stilling the fidgeting fingers. “Firstly, spandex? Ew,” he said flatly, sparking a laugh out of Jeff.  “No. Definitely not.  The rest? Well, there’s not exactly an online tutorial for ‘your baby brother can now climb on walls,’ but I think overall, we’ve done all right.”  He squeezed his father’s hands, caught like a prayer between his own, and sighed like he’d made a decision.  “Come on,” he said, rising slowly in a way that made Jeff think of power under tight control.  “Come downstairs, and I’ll try to explain it to you in words you’ll understand.”

Jeff cuffed John gently along the side of the hair.  “Respect your elders, boy,” he teased, cautiously edging along this feeling of détente.  “I may be old, but who do you think taught you all that fancy maths I see on the boards down there.”

John led the way to the door. “Online tutorials,” he shot back, teasing back.  “But actually,” he added more seriously. “I meant more the reasons  _behind_  the things I make, if that makes sense?”

Jeff nodded as he followed John to the elevators, watched his son punch the code that would take them to the newly hidden levels.  “Kind of. Don’t worry,” he gently nudged John. “I’ll pay attention.”

John nodded like that was enough.

“Also,” Jeff added, hoping he wasn’t going too far, but it had been gnawing at him.  “What’s going on with you and Kayo?”

Only because he was looking for it did Jeff see that old, smug grin flash a fin again. “Kayo will get there in her own time,” John said cryptically.  The elevator dinged, the door sliding open to reveal the sealed doors to John’s lab.  “Now,” he said brightly before Jeff could press further.  “Let’s begin your tour.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> Spider-Man au can we see more of the villain from chapter 17 maybe the brothers asking questions about what they do when they out there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (so @vikapediathat pointed out the obvious-with-hindsight link that is now so canon in this verse it hurts *gg* full credit to them for spotting it)
> 
> (also: zoom zoom zoooom)

Jeff’s tired, a dull nagging headache starting to gnaw at a point between his eyes.  He yanks at his tie, roughly tugging the knot loose.  His sleeves are already rolled up, his suit coat abandoned on the sofa in the corner of his office as he pours himself a generous nightcap.  

It’s an automatic motion now to flick on the TV, random sounds to fill the silence of his office this close to midnight.  He doesn’t even really hear the news reader until the words “Spider” and “Man” don’t so much sink into his consciousness as slams into his brain with the force of a train crash.

The bourbon sloshes in the glass as Jeff drops to sit on the edge of his sofa, heedless of the creases he’s putting in his coat as he stares, transfixed, at the screen.

“…police say that at this stage they do not know the identities of either figure, or how they are related.  There have been unconfirmed reports that the figure some are calling ‘the human spider’ has been involved in stopping several robberies, muggings and other petty crimes over the last several months. Unlike this new figure, however, the human spider has not been involved in any confirmed property damage.  As these exclusive images show, the same cannot be said of this new human octopus.  As police and emergency services sift through the rubble, residents are left to wonder, what  human-hybrid vigilante is going to be next.  For Channel….” the reporter’s voice snaps off with a click, and Jeff jolted out of his stupor, images of an eight-legged mechanical monstrosity bashing through a wall like it was paper.

Scott sets the television remote down with exaggerated care on the coffee table, not looking at Jeff as he turns to help himself to a drink. “I came over to see if you’ve heard the news, but I guess that’s a yes.”  Jeff sighs, nodding as Scott pulled a visitors chair over to sit facing Jeff.

“Where’s Alan?” Jeff croaks, clearing his throat with a cough.  “Is he…?”

“Already home.  Bounced through the door, off a few walls, and then off to bed.  John’s in his workshop,” Scott adds as the silence stretches out once more.  “I tried to ask him about it, but all he’d say was this guy was news to them too.”

Jeff rolls his bourbon around his glass. “I don’t want Alan going any where near that guy.”  His mind’s eye keeps replaying on loop the sweep of that mechanical tentacle, the spray of rubble. “He needs to stay out of its way.”

Scott’s snort is sardonic.  “And how are you going to convince him to do that, exactly? Kid thinks he’s bullet proof.”

Jeff finally laughs for real, leaning back to tilt his head to the ceiling, looking for inspiration or help or even just a clue how to manage this.  His head is throbbing now, and he pinches the bridge of his nose as he tries to think of a way through that will keep his boys  _safe_. “Alan has a very good assessment of his own abilities.  It’s  _John_  who thinks he’s bullet proof.” Jeff tactfully pretends not to hear Scott mutter ‘give him time.’  “But while it’s admirable they think they can help with petty thefts and muggings, that-” he gives up massaging his face to wave at the now-blank screen.  “That isn’t their problem.”

Scott’s brought the bottle over with him, and he leans over to top up his dad’s glass before speaking.  “And I repeat,” he says softly, looking Jeff in the eye.  “Exactly how are you going to convince  _them_  of that?”

Jeff has no idea.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> (Spider-Man au)I so want to know how Scott reacts to Alan sleeping on his ceiling

Scott had learned to sleep with other people around him years ago, and it was an ability that he’d only perfected during his military service.  So as consciousness slowly drifts back in and his gummed-up eyes blink blearily into the dark familiarity of his own bedroom, it takes him a moment to figure out what woke him.

A snuffly kind of snore from directly above had Scott rolling onto his back to blink up at the ceiling.  It took a long moment for the shadows to resolve.

Alan spluttered at the shriek and thump, so startled he lost his grip and fell to bounce off Scott’s now-empty bed.

He moved slowly to peer over the edge of the mattress to look down at the figure splayed on the floor.  “Oh, uh, hi Scotty.”

Scott sat up slowly, feeling bruised everywhere including his pride.  “Alan,” he managed, wincing as he rubbed his elbow.  “What are you doing on my, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, my ceiling?”

Alan screwed his face up adorably as he looked from Scott to the bed to the ceiling and back again.  “Sleep crawling?”

“Sleep….” Scott trailed off, lost for words.  “You know what, this can wait until morning.  Out!”  Scott snatched his pillow back as Alan tried to take it with him as he sidled for the door.  “Own bed.  And walk there!” he yelled as he slammed his door shut behind Alan.

It took the length of the hall for Alan’s abashed creep to turn into a saunter.  John didn’t move from the shadow he was lurking in, except to pass Alan a crisp ten dollar note.

Alan saluted John with it and continued on to bed.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> SpiderMan au “you changed”please

“You’ve changed.”

John paused, unidentifiable tool in one hand, incomplete circuitry in the other. “For good or for bad?”

Kayo took a deep breath, studying his profile. “Jury’s still out.”

John seemed unperturbed as he shrugged and continued tinkering with the array of components spread out like stars on his workbench.

Kayo watched him as the minutes ticked by. Watching John work was like meditation; he was so completely focused that she found her own mind narrowing and clearing almost by osmosis. Her foot swung idly in the air like a metronome, the other braced against the edge of the bench she’d perched on when she’d first come in.

She wasn’t even sure why she was here. To reinforce the détente that had slowly formed between them after too many sessions together alone on the mat, maybe? To find out what he was up to down here, definitely. She couldn’t really explain the pull, even to herself, and that was bugging her no end.

To cover her discomfort, Kayo dropped down to stroll over to John’s side. “What are you making anyway?” she asked, trying to make sense of too many tiny silvery components.

“Something I think we might need sooner than even I expected,” he said, lifting something held by pliers up to a magnifier light he’d set up by his side.

Kayo lifted an eyebrow, but no-one was paying enough attention to appreciate it, and she let it drop. “Have I told you that this cryptic asshole routine is really unattractive?”

John laughed at that, finally looking at her. “Repeatedly. Usually as I’m helping you up off the mat.”

She jabbed his arm for that, but it just made him grin again as he snapped his component into the assemblage on the anti-static mat and held it up over her eyes. “Silver’s your colour,” he told her as she blinked at him through the glass.

Whatever he’d done meant she was now looking at him in infrared, edges softly blurred as heat dissipated into the chilly lab air. “Why do you have it so cold down here, anyway?” she asked, batting his hand away.

John frowned at his device, reaching without looking to pluck one identical precision tool off a rack to make a small adjustment. “It’s good for the computers,” he murmured, attention already back on his machines.

“Your precious tech before people, huh?” she said, leaning her hip on the bench to turn and take in the organized chaos of his work.

He straightened, looking at her with an uncomfortable directness. “Tech that helps people,” he told her with enough sincerity to make her squirm. He grinned, unexpectedly, and turned to pull something out of a drawer. 

Kayo took the moment to exhale and resettle, her eye roaming over the lab again to save her having to look at him and see something she wasn’t ready for yet. “You gonna change the world, huh?” she asked.

John winked at her, and that was another thing that had changed; old John never would have had the confidence to tease her. “Yeah,” he said simply. They’d sparred enough that she didn’t flinch as he reached up, set a pair of goggles over her eyes. His little device was a barely there weight on the frame, but it turned the lab into brilliant ruby reds of the server banks and cool blues of his tanks.

She blinked at him owlishly through the glass, his nose a cooler spot against the flush of his cheeks. “How about you?” he asked, looking over the fit of his creation.

“How about me what?” Kayo asked, rubbing her finger around where the edge of the frame sealed neatly over her cheek.

John’s smile was warm in the view of the goggles. “Wanna help change the world?”


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosmo asked for: Could you please write something where John's over-confidence gets him and Alan into trouble (Spiderman AU)?

Kayo’s not expecting anything more than the soft hum of John’s servers as she thumbs the lock and sends the elevator down to the lab.  He and his brother were both out for one of their  _little strolls_  and weren’t due back for hours.

So it took her a second to reprioritize when the doors hissed open to an argument.

Alan was holding an icepack like a cudgel. “– if you don’t let me…” he trailed off as he saw Kayo in the doorway. “Oh, hey, Kayo, didn’t notice you come in.”

“What’s going on?” she asked, enunciating clearly against Alan’s sunny defense.  “John?”

John turned away from her, moving so she couldn’t see his face.  “Nothing,” he said, and from Alan’s wince she knew she wasn’t the only one to hear the slow slur in his voice.

Clicking her finger, she caught the icepack Alan tossed her way. John yelped as she grabbed his shoulder, but she pinned him back in the seat and swiveled him around to get a look at him.

Alan winced again at the words Kayo used the second she saw the bloody grazes and rapidly darkening bruising that now covered half of John’s face like a grotesque mask.  “What happened?” she asked Alan as she pressed the icepack over the worst of the swelling.

“He, uhh…” Alan shrugged and held up his hands, one flat, the other balled.  “John,” he said, shaking his fist.  “Wall,” he continued, flicking the fingers on his other hands.

It was Kayo’s turn to wince as Alan slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand, complete with crash and burn sound effects.

“It wasn’t that bad,” John muttered, but he took the icepack off Kayo and settled it more evenly across his cheekbones.  “The suit took the worst of it. I just…over-estimated gravity and under-estimated the friction co-efficient in the rain.  I’ll factor in weather in the algorithm, it will be good.”

“Yeah, well, the way you faceplanted the wall, brother, was anything but good,” Alan retorted, swinging up to sit on a bench, his toe resting next to John’s thigh on the cushion of the seat.  A tiny tick of his toes sent the swivel chair rocking back and forward, back and forward.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was epic. Ouch, but epic.” Alan’s hands were twitching as fast as his foot, and Kayo wondered what it had been like for Alan to watch his brother fall. “But perhaps,” Alan added more quietly as Kayo squeezed his hands to stillness. “Maybe never ever do that again, okay?”  

John was looking a little green, so Kayo steered the chair on its noisy rollers away from Alan and towards the corner where Kayo suspected she wasn’t meant to know John had kept all his medical gear.  “I’m guessing hospital is out of the question?  We could say you slammed a motorbike or something.”

John’s grumble was answer enough.  

“Fine,” she said briskly, snapping on a pair of latex gloves and taking the icepack off him.  The work lights were bright enough to make John wince and flinch.  “But oh are you going to owe me after this.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gnomesagetion asked: I was wondering if you could do a chapter with Gordon finding out Alan and John’s secret for your spiderman!au? Thanks 
> 
> this was also asked by @ak47stylegirl -Hay just wondering where Gordon is in your Spider-Man au.we need some Gordon mischief.
> 
> so consider this a two-fer :)

“Hey hey hey!”  Four heads lifted from their quiet kitchen lunch, eyes widening as the yell echoed down the hallway.  “Where are you losers?”  Gordon almost walked past the kitchen door, rocking back on his heels as he caught sight of the circle gathered around the table.  “Hey, there you are.  Start the party, I’m back, bitches!”

Kayo whapped him upside the head as he got in range.  “Don’t use that word.” Turning her whack into a pat, she scuffed his hair out of its careful style. “And welcome back.” As Gordon shrugged away, she rose to take her plate to the dishwasher.

Scott leaned back, looking Gordon up and down.  “We weren’t expecting you until next week.  What happened, piss off a mermaid?”

“Ha ha,” Gordon grinned, reaching over to steal a handful of chips from the bowl in the centre of the table.  “Ship’s sonar kit kept glitching, ended up returning to port early, hence early flight, hence-” Gordon shoved a fistful of chips in his mouth and did a little jazzhands-tapdance number. “Here I am. Early, but still just as awesome.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Scott scolded almost absently as he passed his plate to Kayo with a smile of thanks.

“I’m a bonny boy freshly back from tragedy and triumph at sea, and this is the greeting I get,” Gordon teased, looping his arm over Alan’s shoulders and leaning in.  “Woah, you been working out there, Allie?” He squeezed Alan’s arm and made an impressed noise.

“Growth spurt,” Alan mumbled into his sandwich, shoving it into his mouth to save him from having to elaborate further.

John stood, scraping his chair noisily over the tiles, drawing all eyes to him.  “Welcome home, Gordon.  Now, if you’ll excuse me?”  Clapping Gordon’s shoulder lightly has he passed, John walked out the far door.

Gordon stole his vacated chair, dropping into it and blinking as he looked around the suddenly empty kitchen.  “Where did Alan go?  And Kayo?”  He frowned and tried to sniff his own armpits.

“I think they were planning a surprise for you,” Scott said, fingers crossed under the table.  “Tell me about your trip.  Be honest now - mermaids?”

Successfully distracted, Gordon barked with laughter and dove into his tall tales of life on the high seas of a research vessel.

 * * *

 “I would if they’d stop avoiding me.”

Gordon was slouched on Jeff’s couch, had been, according to his assistant, for most of the afternoon.  It had been a long time since the secret games console stashed in the drawer next to the wet bar had been used, but Jeff had kept it around for a reason.

Jeff sighed, but dumped his notes from the meeting on his desk before coming around to take up the dusty second controller. He was pretty rusty, but he wasn’t tagging into the game for the XP.  “Your brothers aren’t avoiding you,” he said as his character materialized on the screen.

Gordon’s character stepped in front of Jeff’s and sniped three bad guys Jeff hadn’t even noticed in the foliage.  “Tell that to the empty air where people were before I stepped into the room,” he grumbled, tapping keys with an expert flick of his thumb.

On the second try Jeff found the right thumb pad to make his character move forward. He missed joysticks.  “Have you tried talking to them about it?”

Gordon made a noise in his throat and fragged three new baddies with more shots than were strictly necessary.  “No. Asked the empty room where they had just been though, does that count?”

The moves were slowly coming back to Jeff.  “Half a pity point,” he told Gordon as he sent his character lumbering up after Gordon’s.

“Gee, thanks old man,” Gordon was a grinner, always had been.  He’s grinning now as he nudged Jeff in the arm, but Jeff doesn’t have to stare to see it wasn’t really making it all the way to Gordon’s eyes. “Still doesn’t explain why I’m persona non grata all of a sudden.” On screen, a character gave a little digital wail as Gordon shoved him out of the way.  “Scott’s got that look he gets in poker when he’s bluffing while holding a fistful of jokers, Virgil’s attempts at sarcasm are even lamer than I remember, didn’t think  _that_  was possible.  John’s…well, John’s a bigger nerd than ever, which I totally thought was definitely possible.  And when did Alan become an actual ninja?”

Jeff almost choked on his tongue, his own character tumbling down to his virtual death.  

As the load screen appeared, it cast a flickering light over Gordon’s knowing grin.  “So it  _is_  something to do with Alan.  What is it?”

Jeff set aside his controller.  “When did you get more wily than me?”

“Always have been, I just didn’t want you to feel bad,” Gordon quipped.  “Also, stalling.  Alan, what’s up, details, chop chop.”

Cuffing Gordon’s ear turned into a hug.  “Okay, you’re right, there is something up with Alan.  And he will tell you, just let him find his own words, okay?”

Gordon grumbled, but Jeff knew he’d been heard.  “Fine,” Gordon acquiesced sullenly.  “But if he doesn’t tell me by the end of the week, I’m grabbing him by his ankles and shaking him over the balcony until he tells me.”

Jeff turned his unexpected laugh into a little cough.  “Good luck with that.”

Gordon eyed him carefully before reaching over and turning off the screen.  “Get back to work,” he ordered, helping Jeff stand.  Gordon still wasn’t taller than him, but Jeff still felt the power in those shoulders, similar but different to the power he now could feel every time he touched Alan.  “Earn billions, make nations cower at your will, yada yada.”

Jeff laughed honestly this time.  “Go talk to your brothers.”

Gordon snapped a lazy naval salute as he ambled out the doors.

 * * *

“Is there a party?  Aw guys, you shouldn’t have.”

The way Scott and Virgil snapped around, guilt flooding from every pore, told Gordon that he was on the trail.  Only Kayo was inscrutable, a lazy watchfulness to her as she watched Gordon come around to drop onto the couch next to Virgil.

Virgil was a soft touch; Gordon wasn’t above targeting the weakest link.  “All we’re missing are the wonder-nerd twins and we’re all here.”  He made a show of looking around.  “Where are they?”

Scott’s  _umm_  was cut off by the soft slide of the door opening.

Gordon was on his feet, barely sparing a glance for Kayo’s approving nod at his posture and form.  “What the f-”

“Swear jar.” John’s tone was blandly neutral as he tugged off his mask, ran a gloved hand over dishevelled hair.

“Fuck the swear jar, man, I think this counts for a heartfelt  _what the actual fuck_?”

From behind John came a snigger. “You might just want to put a hundred in there and be done with it,” Kayo advised, rising gracefully to greet Alan as he came out from behind John.  She ran her hands over his head, down his cheek.  Whatever she was looking for she didn’t find, and she nodded once, satisfied.

Gordon’s pointing finger moved between John and Alan once, twice, three times, taking in the masks and the suits and John’s latest kit. Alan grinned impishly and winked at Kayo.  Next to him, John sighed but stepped back.

“Hey Gordon,” Alan smirked.  “Guess what I can do.”  Without seeming to move a muscle, Alan threw a backflip, landed on the glass door, and scampered up to the roof and over Gordon’s head.

Gordon craned his neck to watch. Then he sighed, scowled, dug his wallet out of his pocket and threw his platinum black credit card at Scott’s head.

“Fuck this shit, tell me  _everything_!”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> drdone asked:  
> ALL ABOARD THE SPIDERMAN AU TRAIN God bless you aki, my request is something where one of the bros is in danger and Alan and John show up in uniform and fight. If ya wanna.

“Stop staring.”

Gordon rolled his eyes but obediently brought his gaze back down to street level.  “Have you ever seen…you know?”

Virgil rolled his eyes but Scott was grinning.  “Only on the balcony.  It’s a big city.  Come on, we’re going to be late if you keep spider-watching.”

Gordon hurried across the street after his brothers, cursing their longer legs and uncanny ability to make the crowds part like a sea before them in a way that meant they closed right up again right on him.

“Excuse me, sorry, just passing through.”  Gordon doffed an imaginary cap at a pretty girl on a sit-up-and-beg bicycle and got a smile in return before he was unceremoniously yanked onwards.

“Keep up,” Virgil rumbled, draping an arm over Gordon’s shoulders.

“Easy for you,” Gordon said, letting himself be steered off the curb and down a side path. “You’re an icebreaker, I’m just a tiny tug that’s about to get stuck between floes and crushed into penguin food.”

Virgil chuckled.  “Ship metaphors don’t work on Scott. Try planes.”

“Hey, hey, that reminds me, did I tell you the one about the pilot who walked into a bar…?”

The punchline was cut off by the sound of heavy boots behind them and in front.  Gordon pressed in closer to Virgil, turning back to back to keep the eye on one, no two, no three heavyset men in non-descript black who were closing in on them in a circle.

“Money, now,” the closest one said.  The flash of silver was bright in the cool night time darkness.

Scott reached slowly, telegraphing his motions, towards his pocket.  “Really?” Gordon asked, breathing hard with adrenaline.

“It’s just money,” Scott replied, barely moving his lips.  “It’s not worth it.”  His wallet flapped heavily onto the sidewalk.  “There you are.  We’ll just be going now. No harm, no foul.”

The knife shone as it slashed through the air in front of Scott.  “And the watch,” he added.

Gordon froze, felt Virgil tense up next to him.  The watch was Grandpa Tracy’s - Grandma had presented it to Scott as a graduation gift, they knew it was his most prized possession. No way in hell he was giving that up.

Gordon eyed up the nearest guy.  Three on three. He wasn’t much of one for fighting fair, but he could do it in a pinch.  He balled his fists and squared his stance.

“Muggers say what?” a voice from overhead yelled into the frozen tableau.

“Wha-” 

Gordon blinked as something sticky flew past his face and splashed against the knife, coating it in a whiteness that dried from a wet sheen as Gordon stared. He stepped back, his shoulders bumping into Scott and Virgil as a red blur swung around them, knocking the second mugger into the third, the pair of them falling like bowling pins.

There was a mechanical whine and a shadow detached itself from the heavens above to land silently on the cracked sidewalk next to them.  “Don’t play with your food,” it scolded the whizzing figure in red and black mildly, voice modulated but still identifiable if you knew what you were listening for.

“J- _oomph_.”  Virgil’s hand slapped over Gordon’s nose and mouth, and Gordon scrabbled for the right to breathe.  “Right, yeah, sorry,” he panted. “Hi random masked vigilante,” he added with a sarcastic little wave.

John’s mask was blank nothingness, but Gordon still had the sense that eyes were rolling behind it.  “Hello stupid citizen too dumb to not stay on the main streets.”

Behind him, Gordon felt Scott shrug.  “Short cut.”

John leaned down, almost liquid in the way the suit erased and changed the shadows, made a mockery of foreground and background.  Gordon made a mental note to have a chat with John about his obviously quite advanced thoughts on stealth technology later.  When he straightened up, Scott’s brown leather wallet seemed almost cartoonishly bright in his black-gloved hand.

Scott took it slowly, fingers lingering.  “Thanks.”

John pointed, a flicker of his hand to show the way.  “We’ll escort,” he said simply.  “After all,” he added, almost skipping away.  “Can’t let the big bad muggers give you any more grief.”  Scott snorted as John’s boot thunked off a wall as he climbed for altitude to launch. It was the first audible sound, apart from his voice, that Gordon had heard from him the entire time.  “Spider, let’s go!”

“Later!” No amount of modulation could strip Alan’s voice of its happy chirp as he skittered lightly over the pavement.  A wave goodbye turned into a gesture that sent a long filament-thin line flying, and Alan was gone in a ballistic arc that sent him up over the low-rise brownstones of the area.

Gordon whistled long and low as he searched the sky above for any sign of them.  “Where’d they go?”

“Not far, I bet,” Scott muttered, weighing his wallet in his hand for a moment before shoving it back into his pocket.  “We’ll talk about this later,” he added in a louder voice.  There was no reply, and Scott scowled.  “Come on,” he told Virgil and Gordon. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What about them?”  Virgil’s hand shook slightly as he pointed at where three figures were plastered to the wall in increasingly ludicrous poses.

“I think,” Gordon said quickly, turning to track the approaching rise and fall of a siren.  “That’s already been covered. Come on, I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want to answer questions from the po-po.”

Necks prickling with the sense of being stared at from the shadows, the three of them hurried towards the corner and the sounds of people and normalcy.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ak47stylegirl asked  
> Spider-Man au maybe something with how hero’s are too self sacrificing.

Alan’s exhausted.

He’s been tired before, but this is something else.  This is legs made of concrete and head full of wool levels  _exhausted_. It takes him five goes to get his locker combination right, eyes and brains and hands just refusing to line up correctly.

And now he’s got gym class.  Alan yawns until his jaw cracks, cursing as his attempt to shove his folder into his locker turns into a landslide of supplies.  Someone nearby laughs, and Alan doesn’t turn around to see if it’s at him, though his ears are burning by the time he gets his kit bag out, slamming the locker door shut to seal off the next landslide.

He’s the last into the locker room - at least him changing in one of the bathroom stalls isn’t unusual.  Before the bite, he was embarrassed to be seen, still waiting desperately to fill out like Virgil or Scott. 

Now, he doesn’t want to explain the eight-pack abs.  Sometimes, back in the warehouse, he’d take a moment to poke them.  They still didn’t seem quite real, an actual part of him.  A lot of the changes still felt like they belonged to someone else.

The coach’s whistle blows, and Alan hisses a word that’d get him paying into the jar at home as he yanks on his sneakers and hustles out into the gym.

He’s still the last one out, the coach scowling as Alan joins the end of the row of boys.  “Tracy.  So kind of you to join us!  Maybe you’d like to get in first for once, and show us how it’s done.”

Alan hides his scowl under a bright smile.  His usual trick was to watch the others go first, pick out something everyone did wrong and copy that.  But now the coach is pointing out the climbing rope and the cargo nets, and Alan is cursing his luck.

He could be up and across in seconds.  His shoulders were strong enough from webs that he could do it without using his feet, the way Scott showed him back before he was a spider, when he first saw these  high ropes in the gym.  Alan could, if he wasn’t careful, get all the way to the top and start out across the rafters that had been tempting him to climb since he first spun a web.  He could stick it to the coach and his favourites, score one for the nerds.

Alan takes a deep breath, steps onto the mat, and climbs slowly, making a show of slipping.  He pulls himself up seven times, using only the strength in his wrists and forearms to make it look like he’s struggling.

Seven’s a prime.  That’s good enough.  He lets go slowly, willing himself to slip when his instinct now is to stick.  He lands on the red mat hard enough to bounce.  The wince is unfeigned.

There’s laughter from the jock crowd, a “try harder, Tracy” from the coach as he waves Alan back into the line with a jerk of his thumb.

One of his friends from his chemistry class gives Alan a consoling little smile, his nose wrinkling under his glasses.

Alan nods back and turns to watch the jocks clamber awkwardly up towards the bell at the top. His fingers were itching to climb, but now wasn’t the time.

Tonight, he’d have the whole city as his playground.  Today, he was Alan Tracy, tiny nerdy nobody.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ak47stylegirl asked  
> Spider-Man au can we maybe have Alan meet the villain (first fight with)

Alan loved the flow of web swinging - the elegant curves in three dimensional space, the way gravity slipped over him like water.  The inertia and the wind on his face and the way the city shifted and moved beneath him as he swung.

He was so distracted he didn’t notice the out of place lights glowing out at him from the otherwise blank facade of the building.  His spider sense stabbed at his brain just as the lights flared with a whir of powerful servos.

Alan yelped, cutting his line and dropping three storeys straight down before he got another line away.  He landed hard against the building opposite, skittering in a circle to try and spot where the octo-guy had gone.

The crunch of masonry crumbling as claws got traction was his only warning.  Alan leaped, sailing out over the street far below before he curled and thwipped a line that accelerated him upwards, a desperate scramble for height.

The roof was blank except for the blocky metal boxes of the air con units and the cinderblock stairwell head in the far corner.  Alan skipped across the gritty surface, shedding momentum.

The human octopus lumbered, he realized as the figure crawled over the edge of the building, like each step was a fight against invisible forces.  Even in the low light, this close, Alan could see the gleam of fresh rivets, the cold shine of glass set into goggles above a slatted mask.

“Alan? What’s going on?” John’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Octo-dude,” Alan hissed through gritted teeth.

John cursed, low and vehement.  “Get out of there, I’m on my way.” Alan took one cautious step back.  

“Leaving so soon, little spider?”  He froze as the reverberations of the distorted voice faded out into the night. “Not even a hello?”

Alan exhaled silently.  “I thought you’d do your, y’know, building crunching thing, and I’ll just be…somewhere else.”

The rasping noise was laughter, he realized slowly. “Staying out of my way is a very good idea, little spider.”

Alan knew he should web out of there, get clear.  But curiousity wasn’t just a cat trait. “Why?  Who are you? What do you want?”

The hydraulics were loud this close. Alan felt rooted to the spot as the man in the centre of the tentacles levered himself down to stare in at Alan’s masked face.  “I want everything.”

“Everything?” Even with the voice modulator, his own voice sounded like a yelp.  “Um, no, sorry, can’t let you do that.”

“You won’t join me?”

Alan swallowed hard.  “Uh, pass?”

“Then what good are you?”  One tentacle rose, as if to squish Alan.  

Alan back-flipped away, almost cartwheeling to the illusionary security of the air conditioning ducts.  “Uh, anyone? Little help?”

“Almost there. Get clear!”

Alan’s spidersense tingled, and Alan dove to the left, sliding under a thrashing tentacle that took the air duct clear off its struts. “Not really an option right now, thanks for the input,” Alan snarled as John repeated his order.

His slide had brought him almost directly underneath the man at the centre of it all.  Alan braced his feet and shoulders on the concrete, brought up both web shooters, and fired.

The howl that followed was completely human.  Male human, to be precise.  Alan winced even as he rolled clear of the stomping tentacles. A few quick thwips tied limb to limb, and Alan knotted them all together before flipping over the lines like a highjumper to tumble off the edge of the building.

The hum of John’s pod was a symphony to Alan’s ears.  Alan didn’t even look, just reached out an arm and sent a line flying.  He grabbed with both hands as the line snapped taut, pulled along by the speed of John’s flight.  “Keep going,” Alan yelled. “I think I pissed him off.”

Trusting John to find the escape, Alan dared look back.  Two glowing points were staring right at him until John jinxed left down an avenue and the rising skyscrapers took them out of sight.

Only when they were several blocks away did Alan climb up onto the pod.  “What did he want?” John asked.

Alan exhaled hard.  “Everything.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ak47stylegirl asked  
> More Spider-Man Alan au?

Kayo has started keeping a folder on her personal drive, triple encrypted and constantly growing.  Every news report and blurry photograph with  _hashtag kraken_  has been carefully filed and cross-referenced, annotated with more questions than answers as she tries to understand.

This thing has made it clear; it will crush her brothers if they cross paths again.

A breaking news alert triggered one of the dozen keywords she’d set up weeks ago, and Kayo watched the shaky, cellphone video of a tiny figure swinging away from a rampaging monster, a bull after a red rag, all playing out a dozen stories above street level.

Kayo rode the elevator down to the sub-level, her heart in her throat and her fist in her teeth as she watched Alan skip and skitter in a desperate attempt to shake his tail.  

The image cut out with the flash of her private line ringing, John’s photo, caught unawares at his workbench the profile picture.  She slammed the connect button.  “Where are you?”

“Uptown, we’ve got…”

“I was watching the footage,” she cut him off ruthlessly as the elevator dinged its arrival. “Please tell me your safe.”

“Safe-ish,” John said, and she can hear the tension in his voice.  “Where are you?”

“Lab. Why?”

John’s sigh was soft and deep.  “I’m sorry, Kayo, I’m really sorry. I wanted to wait for you.  But we need your help.”

Kayo frowned, stopped dead in the middle of the cool white space.  “Of course.  What do you need me to do?”

“See the door the server room?  Left side, put your hand on the plate.”  Kayo gasped as it lit up under her touch, the rumble of distant machinery felt through her boots as one of the cryo tanks shifted to reveal a new, shallow alcove.

The suit inside was sleek blue-grey, exactly her size, cris-crossed with straps and pockets that she itched to explore.  “John?”

“It’s your choice,” he said, his words speeding up like he was running out of time.  “But I made it for you.  Time to decide, Kayo.  Do you want to help save the world?”  The line cut off with a click.

Kayo swallowed hard and stepped forward.  

The mask wasn’t as claustrophobic as she feared, the lenses tinting the world in shades of warm and cold.  She tested the stretch of her gloves, and the HUD lit up, a beacon glowing to the north-east showing her the way.

There was another icon in the bottom centre of her vision, a circle filled with a design like a bird.  Kayo stared at it until it began to glow.  Above her, the ceiling opened to lower a sleek, shallow craft, wings swept back over heli-blades.  Every line screamed speed and agility.

Grinning under her mask, Kayo stepped forward.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> such-a-random-rambler asked  
> you asked for prompts? so how about a family dinner in your spideralan au

“I could just….” Alan made a  _thwip thwip_  gesture towards the windows, where the snow drifts were already piling up on the ledge.  “Get us a few real pizzas?”

Jeff kept his eyes on the grater so his son couldn’t see either his eye roll or his worry.  “No-one is webbing their way anyway.  This is a serious blizzard, the city is shut down.  No crime to fight, not villains to thwart-” Jeff winced against the roiling acid in his stomach but kept going.  “Nothing except a home cooked meal with your family. With  _real_  homemade pizzas.  Got it?”

“Yes sir,” Alan mumbled, ambling off towards the living room.

Jeff waited until he was sure Alan was gone before putting down the block of cheese to brace with both hands against the counter, forcing himself to breathe until he felt more steady.

“He’s safe.” 

Jeff jumped despite himself.  He jabbed the block of cheese at John as he tried to cover his surprise.  “And you, I’m putting a bell on you.”

John took the cheese and  put it back in the fridge, taking out the pepperoni stick and peppers.  “You’re welcome to try,” he said quietly, but with a warm smile as he gently hip-checked Jeff out of the way and began slicing things up for the homemade pizza toppings.

Jeff leaned against the small kitchen table, worn and out of place in the gleaming space, but one they’d kept since he and the boy’s mother first married.  “Go on, John, please, take over making dinner,” he said sarcastically, feeling the worn wood under his palms.

“Don’t mind if I do,” John shot back, smiling over his shoulder.  “Go on, they’re watching Spaceballs in there, I know you want to go do the voices.  I’ll make dinner.”

He and John should talk.  He and John needed to talk.

Jeff just wasn’t sure what to say to him.  Or Alan.

He’d never felt so far from his sons before, even as John continued to work right there, just at the end of Jeff’s reach.  His fingers twitched and curled around the edge of the table as he tried to decide whether or not to try and touch.  “Don’t forget, Gordon doesn’t like peppers on his.”

John shook his head but didn’t turn around.  “He’s already asked for pineapple, the philistine. Go on,” he added, glancing back.  “I’ve got this. Go.”

Jeff paused, but the right words didn’t come.  Inhaling himself upright, Jeff followed the sound of one of their favourite movies.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ak47stylegirl asked  
> Spider-Man Alan au - Jeff having a argument with John about Spider-Man ?

Alan’s been told over and over again not to crawl along the ceilings, but as far as he knows, no-one is home to yell at him. Besides, he likes it up here, it’s comforting and quiet.

So when he hears raised voices, he freezes for a moment before he realizes that the shouting isn’t directed at him. Cautiously, he crawled closer until he was just outside the door to his father’s office.

“…enabling this reckless behaviour!”  

“Alan’s made his choice, and I’ve supported it.  If that’s enabling, so be it.”  Alan’s come to both respect and almost fear that calm even tone John has started to adopt more and more frequently.  It reminds him too much of a cold warehouse late in the night after things had all gone wrong.

The slap of a hand on the table was loud in the night air.  “Goddamnit John, how can you be so cold about every thing that’s happened to your little brother?”

Alan’s heart skipped a beat at John’s even tone.  “I trust him.”  His tone warmed a few degrees.  “Despite people like me showing him all the wrong things, he’s turned out to be a good kid.  Great, even.  If this whole…if the spider thing had to happen to anyone, I think we should be grateful it was Alan.  Anyone else, it would either wreck them or take them places none of us would want to see them go.”

Dad’s sigh is loud in the silent night.  “But why Alan?”

In his words, Alan can almost hear the shrug.  “Why anything, why anyone?  But I think we’ve all suffered enough.  This doesn’t have to be another cross to bear.”

This time, his dad snickers, an explosive puff of air.  “And when did you turn into a philosopher?”

There’s a rustle of fabric; John always liked to leave on the last word.  “Late at night, when spiders are abroad in places they’re not supposed to be.”  Alan’s eyes went wide, but John didn’t even look up as he passed through the door underneath him and disappeared down the corridor.

Only because he was daring to not even breathe did Alan hear the soft sigh of his father’s turn into words.  “I’m sorry Luce.”

Alan turned and scampered away, not ready to hear anything more.


End file.
